95. At the first meeting of the Reich Defense Council, on Nov. 18, 1938, Göring had told those assembled, “Gentlemen, the financial situation looks critical.” Goebbels wrote in his diary: “The financial situation of the Reich is catastrophic. We must look for new ways. It cannot go on like this. Otherwise we will be faced with inflation.” Mason, Arbeitsklasse, 925; Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, VI: 219 (Dec. 13, 1938). In early Jan. 1939, the Reichsbank Directorate sent Hitler a collective petition urging “financial restraint” to avoid the “threatening danger of inflation.” Hitler, upon seeing eight signatures, responded, “That is mutiny.” Twelve days later he fired Schacht as Reichsbank president. But that (and a mass of resignations from the bank’s board) did nothing to alleviate the circumstance. Schacht, My First Seventy-Six Years, 392–4. Nazi Germany also canceled at the last minute a planned visit to Moscow in Feb. 1939 by Karl Schnurre, humiliating the Soviets.
96. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 161–2.
97. Given the labor shortages—estimated to be at least 1 million as of Jan. 1939—foreign laborers looked necessary for factories and farms. Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 847–55; Mason, Nazism, 106–113.
98. Bezymenskii, Stalin und Hitler, 183–209. Politburo approval came on Jan. 21, 1939.
99. Lisovskii, SSSR i kapitalisticheskoe okruzhenie. See also Barghoorn, Soviet Image of the United States, 18.
100. Zemskov, “Zakliuchennye,” 55–6; Joyce, “Soviet Penal System,” 104. A Nov. 17, 1938, report by the party cell in the Gulag finance department stated that the Gulag had attained just 71.6 percent of its assigned plan targets, including just 62.7 percent of railway construction. The report stated that costs were high, labor productivity low, and mismanagement so rampant it could not all be attributed to deliberate wrecking. Pliner, the Gulag head, was soon sacked and arrested. Afanas’ev et al., Istoriia stalinskogo gulaga, III: 148–56 (Chugunikhin); Joyce, “Soviet Penal System,” 103. Beria, in April 1939, wrote to Molotov claiming that he lacked slave laborers to complete his assigned tasks—a shortage across Gulag of some 400,000 prisoners. Beria wanted a freeze on new projects assigned to Gulag and a recall of those prisoners loaned out on contracts to non-Gulag enterprises, and he sought measures to improve slave laborers’ diet and health. Afanas’ev et al., Istoriia stalinskogo gulaga, III: 162–3; Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 203–5.
101. Nordlander, “Evolution of the Dal’stroi Bosses”; Kozlov, “Pervyi direktor”; Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind, 290–304. Stalin had congratulated and rewarded Berzin on a number of occasions. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 56, l. 13 (Feb. 8, 1937).
102. Dalstroi had grown from 62,703 recorded prisoners in late 1936 to 93,978 by the end of 1938. Conquest, Inside Stalin’s Secret Police, 106; Afanas’ev et al., Istoriia Stalinskogo Gulaga, II: 153–4 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 58, l. 77, 80); Nordlander, “Evolution of the Dal’stroi Bosses.” Stalin received A. A. Khodyrev, deputy chief of Dalstroi, twice (Jan. 24 and Feb. 7, 1939). Na prieme, 251, 253. Some of the ships used by the Soviets to transport prisoners were British and American built. Bollinger, Stalin’s Slave Ships.
103. Sovietland, 1939, no. 4: 10.
104. Dallin and Nicolaevsky, Forced Labor, 133–34; Nikolaevskii, “Dal’stroi,” 256–7; Conquest, Kolyma.
105. Rittersporn, Anguish, 174 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 81a, d. 335, l. 109–14).
106. Stalin had instructed the teacher to be firmer. In fact, the teacher and school director were fired. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 60–2 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1553, l. 9: June 8, 1938).
107. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 58–9 (l. 20–22: Dec. 8, 1938); Polianskii, 10 let s Vasiliem Stalinym, 17–8; Sokolov, Vasilii Stalin, 76–8; Tokaev, Stalin Means War, 120.
108. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 60–2 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1553, l. 26–8).
109. Vasily also “was a good athlete, rode a horse with aplomb, and was fond of motorcycles and cars.” Polianskii, 10 let s Vasiliem Stalinym, 20.
